Saturday, August 10, 2013

Bit of wisdom

At my last piano lesson, I played "Serenade of the Doll" from Debussy's Children's Corner. My teacher asked, as he usually does after I've played something through, how I thought it had gone. I said, "It wasn't too terrible." We both laughed, and then he told me about a conversation overheard on the Metro:

Tourist: Everyone told us people in DC are so mean, but we haven't found that to be true at all! Everyone we've met has been really nice!

DC Native: In DC, we're only mean to ourselves.

"So don't be mean to yourself! I thought it was pretty good."

It's something of a conundrum: On the one hand, you have to be self-critical or you'd never improve. On the other, if you get into the habit of telling yourself how bad you are, this starts permeating your self-image and eroding confidence in what you're doing.

I guess as with everything, there's a happy medium somewhere in there.

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Well-Tempered Clavier Project

I am on a quest to learn all 48 sets of preludes and fugues in Bach's Well-Tempered Clavier, "learning" including memorizing. I thought it might be interesting to collect all of my Bach efforts in one place; see the list below. Clicking on the link will open the recording so you can listen to it.

The recordings are in reverse chronological order (oldest last). The earliest was recorded in 2006.

I am NOT implying that these are definitive interpretations! Rather, this is meant to document my development as an amateur pianist.

I have actually learned these others as well but never tried recording them; maybe someday I will go back and resurrect them:

WTC II/20 in A minor
WTC I/21 in B flat major
WTC I/1 in C major
WTC I/2 in C minor